


Learn to Fly

by wingeddserpent



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s04e16 On the Head of a Pin, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 02:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingeddserpent/pseuds/wingeddserpent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anna pushes Castiel out of the nest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learn to Fly

“Anna,” his voice is rough, standing alone, illuminated by the lamppost. “Anna, please.”

She knows she shouldn’t, but she never could turn aside someone asking for help, not when she was an angel and certainly not when she was human. In all likelihood, that will be her undoing someday. But she goes to him anyway. “Decided to kill me after all?”

“I’m alone,” he says, meeting her gaze.

She believes him. After all that time doing what they thought was their Father’s Will together, how can she do anything besides that? Anna knows Castiel: knows how he fights, how he flies, how he bleeds, how he asks for help. “What do you want from me, Castiel?”

“I’m considering disobedience,” Castiel says all at once, baring before her the depth of his transgression.

His expression, reflected imperfectly upon his vessel’s face, is hollowed out, taut, and does not surprise her. The charge in his care nearly died torturing the very monster Castiel had braved Hell itself to rescue him from. There was no divinity in the orders that put Dean in that boiler room and now she is not the only one to see that. “Good.”

“No. It isn’t,” he says, and she knows he believes it, “For the first time, I feel—“

And for the first time since they began, he averts his gaze from her. Anna wants to lie to him, tell him that it will be all right, that choosing Dean over Heaven, humans over angels, will be the best choice for him. But she cannot. “It gets worse. Choosing your own course of action,” she says, moving to him, till they are nearly so close as to be touching, “It’s confusing. Terrifying.”

Anna makes the mistake of reaching out to Castiel, to offer comfort as she had so many times before, and he shies away from her touch, not looking at her, posture stiffer than usual. “That’s right. You’re too good for my help. I’m just trash. A walking blasphemy,” she snaps, because she had forgotten, somehow, what he thinks of her now and she had thought, when she cut away her Grace, when she Fell, the sting of losing her brothers and sisters would fade, but here Castiel is, asking for her help and then rejecting her comfort—she turns to leave. 

“Anna.”

But she stops at her name. Just like she came at his call. She does not turn to face him, keeps looking instead out to the darkness. Anna can guess what he wants, what he has always wanted from her. Except this time, she cannot give it. “I don’t know what to do,” he says, soft.

She turns to face him, slowly.

And she _wants_ to tell him what he should do, wants to so badly that it feels as though a hole is being carved into her, to be filled with his wild, blue desperation. But she can’t take this choice for him.

The past is past; the time where she could tell him what to do and have it be right is past. 

Angels see in black and white while humans and—she presumes—demons see color. Anna can see, still, the vibrancy of Castiel’s vessel’s blue eyes, unable to mask the doubt and turmoil within. She aches with him as he questions, because she remembers what it felt like, to alone with doubts in the garrison. Except Castiel has a charge half-dead at the hand of the demon who broke him once, whereas she had her brothers and sisters looking to her for direction when she had none herself. 

Anna wonders, watching Castiel grasp for something to make sense of his newfound emotions, how much of this disobedience has to do with Dean. 

The Righteous Man is not what she expected, though to tell the truth she is not sure what she expected. She remembers the flash of heat against her palm where she pressed her hand into the burn, remembers Dean warm and firm and alive beneath her, striving towards forgiveness. And he had been beautiful; bright green eyes fixed on her face, pupils dark and wide with want, his body hard from hunting, but inside, so soft and _good_. Anna—even now with her Grace returned—wants to kiss away the hellfire to replace it with the vibrancy of Earth, with all its sorrows and joys. 

With her hand over where Castiel had laid claim, laying with the man who had her brother’s signature written down to his marrow, she had felt Castiel there. She had felt close to him and missed him like a knife to her ribs, as she felt her brother’s presence beneath the raw of Dean’s shoulder. (Oh, had she longed for her brothers and sisters, missed Castiel though he was on his way to kill her. That he even _could_ was nearly as bad as a sword to the heart.)

But she had smiled at Dean. In their coupling, this beautiful man—who had died for his baby brother, who had refused to give her up even when threatened with Hell—was able to give her himself and her own brother in the same moment. For all her loss, humanity had been a boon.

She hopes, watching Castiel stand alone and lost beneath the lamppost, that Dean will recover from this. From Alastair, from the meddling of angels and demons. And she prays to her absent Father that Castiel will find his way, will do what is right rather than what he is told. Will do what is best for his charge and himself. “Please tell me what to do,” Castiel says, voice soft, pleading.

“Like the old days?” she asks him, mouth twisting, because she would like to return to the simplicity of before sometimes, but even angels change, “No. I’m sorry. It’s time to think for yourself.”

It is the burn of fire when she departs. But she cannot order him. He must, finally, choose for himself. Anna flies, but does not abandon him; Castiel must choose, but he need not be alone. 

 

And that is why she can save him from Uriel. Because she is there, because she sees, because Castiel is her brother, because she _loves_. 


End file.
